


mortolithomancy

by daekie



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, F/F, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 17:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11295282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daekie/pseuds/daekie
Summary: The funny thing about corruption is that it's both a lot more, and a lot less, subtle than everyone thinks.We still have time.  We'll always have time.





	mortolithomancy

**Author's Note:**

> mort  
> [mawrt]  
> 1\. noun (obsolete) - death
> 
> litho-  
> [lith-oh]  
> 1\. a combining form meaning “stone,” used in the formation of compound words
> 
> -mancy  
> 1\. a combining form meaning “divination,” of the kind specified by the initial element:

Lanthe wakes up. She wakes up again. She wakes up, panting, clawing at her walls, still-dreaming of someone's echoing voice in her head like shattering glass —  
she wakes up, dispassionately, and the fur is falling off her fingers, and she thinks, _oh, is this what they felt like, is this how the Vigil is made_ \- she's no Vigil child, after all; but every Charr, from barely-open eyes to the soon-to-wither and the already-withering, knows the story of how Almorra Soulkeeper cut down her entire warband and returned to the Black Citadel a heartbroken gladium.  She knows the details, always asked for them every time as a cub, of how Harthog's fur whispered away like dandelion fluff and his muzzle collapsed into his throat and his nose shriveled up like a rotten plum, and Almorra (brave, brave, terrified Almorra, she doesn't  _want_ to join the Vigil but she knows that would be why if she ever did) breaking his blood-glass body into a thousand screaming pieces.  
  
The cut on her palm, when she looks at it - the fur is all gone, and she can barely feel anything there, even when her fingers flex obediently.  Her claws are lavender crystal and the black veins are creeping up through her wrist, leaving mange behind, and Lanthe  _fucking_ Dawnsong - thinks - thinks - well.  She thinks she should go to her mother first.    
  
Isn't this what a Necromancer, a Necromancer of the Priory and of such great renown, studies?  Dragon corruption?    
Fangs and claws against the gods, a sliver of Jormag's fang, a shaving from Primordus' muzzle - the petal of a blighting pod - Della Fearflight's quarters in the Durmand Priory (because this is where she lives, the Priory; a child of Ash Legion has never felt at home in her own land, too-warm too-bright) are far away.  A week's travel, or more, and Lanthe knows crystal-clear (crystal clear?) that in a week she may have lost her arm to this.  Her chest.  Herself, in her entirety.

In the end she sends her dam a message, built from Asura-tech, and one of her fingers.  What little blood makes its' way out when she cuts it off is electrified, and it smokes at the table and sizzles before she spits on it.  Lante is so gods-damn terrified she feels she will burst at the seams; she cannot be trusted like this, the sound of lightning in her ears and in her mind - Astriferre, because she is a loyal flower even if she is not-Charr (tall enough to be one, with strong and sturdy arms, dripping wisteria for hair so thick it can muffle a flame), Astriferre Dawnglow slips through her barred door in the sound of a universal recall and rests one hand on her shoulder.  She runs a hand through Lante's mane, tender, and tells her - "I love you."

(Astriferre is not old, for a Sylvari, but she remembers the Heart of Maguuma - the Pact offensive - she had lost her dearheart there.  What she shares with Lante is different, but her dearheart will always be in the dream; she knows, acutely, when Lante dies there will be nothing left but memories.  And, more importantly, she remembers the beguiling voice of Mordemoth in her head, and the slight little seedling next to her kicking and biting with blind eyes, her bark-flesh overgrowing with spikes and spines; she had pressed a hand to Astriferre's face with green-glowing fingers and looked at her with an animal's intelligence, and left.  She'd never seen that girl again, but she's heard stories of some poor darling holed up in a barn, blind-mute and overgrown, _it is not her place_.  Astriferre is an explorer for the Durmand Priory.  She cannot save someone so lost, with not even the slightest vine of the Dream left in their head.  That's a job for someone else.)

"I love you," Astriferre whispers, and presses fingers to Lante's slight-curved horns like it can say everything she doesn't know.  

"My dam - she needs to _know -_ "  
"Shhh.  It's alright, darling, it's alright.  I know.  I know it hurts.  Kralkatorrik cannot take you - I'm here, darling, I'm here - " and surrounding them is a nexus of violet light, the slow breeze of the clock turning back, and Astriferre's everything glints lavender and soft and she presses her other hand to Lante's muzzle and for both of them everything just sort of  


slows down

(they will come back eventually, but only when someone comes for them; the stasis field covers the whole room, and dust stops in the air and they are caught, together, in a locked room, in embrace)

**Author's Note:**

> (lante dawnsong - charr thief, iron legion, legionnaire of the Dawn warband and daughter of:  
> della fearflight- charr reaper, ash legion, magister of the Durmand Priory and legionnaire of the Flight warband  
> astriferre 'dawnglow' - sylvari chronomancer)


End file.
